Dibrugarh, June 17: The Ulfa extortion machinery is up and running after the Bhutan-induced stupor, and the tea industry is again the prime target. The general-officer-commanding of the army’s 4 Corps today said the Ulfa was desperate for money to reorganise its units, some of which took a severe beating during the military operation by Bhutan.

“The militant group is desperate to resurrect itself in the region. We are in touch with the big tea companies and other likely targets of its extortion campaign,” Lt Gen. Anup S. Jamwal told the media at the army’s Dinjan base in Dibrugarh district....

Imphal, June 17: Manipur chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh today admitted on the floor of the Assembly that his government’s attempts to lift prohibition from the state had come a cropper, despite enacting a legislation. He attributed this failure to strong objections from non-governmental organisations.

Rounding off the budget discussion in the Assembly, which was boycotted by the Opposition, Ibobi Singh conceded that his government’s efforts to scrap the Prohibition Act from the whole of Manipur were scuttled following stiff opposition from Meira Paibis and other youth organisations. The...

Shillong, June 17: First a doctor, then a politician and now a singer: Meghalaya minister Mukul Sangma loves wearing many hats. As his political rivals rave and rant about his allegedly corrupt ways, Sangma is in a different zone, awaiting the release of a Garo music album in which he makes his debut as a singer trilling about “love and peace”.

The album, which he co-produced with wife Dikkanchi Shira, will be promoted through a video shot in Mumbai and parts of the Garo hills. Some faces from Bollywood reportedly feature in the video.

The public works department and information and...

Kohima, June 17: A regional space centre would be set up in Nagaland, officials of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) have promised chief minister Neiphiu Rio. Top Isro scientists, including executive director Satyanarayan and director of its satellites communications programme, Bhaskaranarayanan, visited Kohima earlier this week.

“We hope to initiate quite a few projects here,” Satyanarayan told Rio. “If the space centre is established, several other projects, such as disaster management systems, can be designed,” said an assistant scientific officer here.

Isro scientists...

SHILLONG, June 17 – Meghalaya Government on Wednesday admitted in the Assembly that employees of the State Cooperative Marketing and Consumer Federation Ltd (Mecofed) were not getting salaries for the last seven months.

Cooperation Minister Charles Pyngrope said in reply to BJP member AL Hek’s question that the salary was not paid to them as there was a ‘huge difference’ between the monthly income and expenditure of the Mecofed. He said Mecofed was supposed to generate its own funds for paying salaries, but the huge gap between its income and expenditure was the reason of the backlog in...